Just finished reading Ruins of the Undercity, another OSR book. Really nice solo campaign generator with a decent bestiary and interesting items. There's also good stuff for downtime and shopping in the city. Labyrinth Lord flavour OSR.

//qThe only defense is to cease all communications. Shut all systems down, receive no messages. Further rep p p sqdr ....................//

"We live in a nuclear powered universe. We're the oddballs by getting energy from burning carbon."James Lovelock

I've just started reading Eclipse Phase. Holy cow, what a fictional setting! I'm not sure how successful I'd be likely to be in bringing it to the table and getting everyone on board, though it did well and hit the high concepts in some convention games I've played in.

So it's possible. But whether I'm able to bring it out or not, it's a great read.

Procedurally generated dungeon, like the old ones in the DMG. Most monsters have tactics listed, and it's designed for a single player/GM. The kind of thing you could take on a business trip to spin some characters through some levels to get background and experience.

//qThe only defense is to cease all communications. Shut all systems down, receive no messages. Further rep p p sqdr ....................//

"We live in a nuclear powered universe. We're the oddballs by getting energy from burning carbon."James Lovelock

dr_mitch wrote:I've just started reading Eclipse Phase. Holy cow, what a fictional setting! I'm not sure how successful I'd be likely to be in bringing it to the table and getting everyone on board, though it did well and hit the high concepts in some convention games I've played in.

So it's possible. But whether I'm able to bring it out or not, it's a great read.

You missed Arkat's earlier campaign! We only scratched the surface of the setting, and a lot more scenarios have been published since then.I'm keen that this gets another outing, unfortunately that's probably four games away.

I got hold of the Dark Matter setting again. It's 1990s tastic (yeah, I know it came out around 2001, but still); I'd have to run the as a period piece rather than in the modern day. And I'd almost certainly use GUMSHOE to do it. It's also very US centric, which I didn't remember. It's still fun, but not as fresh as I remember, but could produce some fun weirdness, though it's far less coherent than something like Delta Green or Esoterrorists.

It's a grab bag of stuff, and some of it's still cool. Though I wonder if I'm a bit put off modernish conspiracy stuff by the internet and coming across people who genuinely believe that sort of nonsense.

* * *

On a completely different note, I've also bought and largely read Icons Assembled edition. It's an amazingly good game, looking to be fun to set up and run, and it tempts me. But it's also for a genre (cartoon super heroes) that doesn't much interest me. And many of the cool bits are quite strongly tied to that genre. But I'm still torn because it looks really good, and pretty easy to get up and going.

I've pulled out the D&D 5e Starter Set as I'm running it for my co-workers (only one of whom has ever role played before). Should be fun. Certainly, it'll be interesting to see how they approach certain things in the adventure.

dr_mitch wrote:On a completely different note, I've also bought and largely read Icons Assembled edition. It's an amazingly good game, looking to be fun to set up and run, and it tempts me. But it's also for a genre (cartoon super heroes) that doesn't much interest me. And many of the cool bits are quite strongly tied to that genre. But I'm still torn because it looks really good, and pretty easy to get up and going.

Like you, I'm not a super hero RPG fan (sorry Simon), but one of my group used this rules set to GM her first ever game and I really liked it. We only played two sessions but I'm really hopeful that she'll run some more in the future.

I described it elsewhere as "A fantastic book with lots to steal. Makes you think a little differently. More like the underground adventures in RQ2/3 than D&D. Terrifying and beautiful. Book is gorgeous too. Great art and layout and very high quality."

I then went in a more gonzo direction by reading the PDF of "MORTZENGERSTURM", a scenario about a manticore wizard and his lair at the top of the prismatic peak. It looks like a fun scenario for a one shot. It's has 5e stats but, as Dr Mitch would put it, D&D is a language, yes? It reminded me in some ways of "Blood in the Chocolate", although that treats itself a little more seriously.

//qThe only defense is to cease all communications. Shut all systems down, receive no messages. Further rep p p sqdr ....................//

"We live in a nuclear powered universe. We're the oddballs by getting energy from burning carbon."James Lovelock

Just finished reading "Beyond the Wall", which is a low fantasy D&D clone that claims to focus on the kind of stories that Ursula K Le Guin and Susan Cooper write. That coloured me interested straight away. I'd seen a reference to it on a blog somewhere, and picked up the PDF packages. I didn't go with the book in hardcover, as it was £28 before postage and that was on the high side to jump straight in. There's a Fictoplasm podcast episode on this, interesting & entertaining but didn't give me enough to make a buying decision.

The system is a simple retro-clone. Core book has Warrior/Rogue/Mage as classes. These are nuanced in playbooks. The playbooks are great - they have the USP that you create an background and - what Dungeon World would call bonds - relationships with the other players and your village. Magic is significantly different. Splits into Cantrips, Spells and Rituals. Cantrips need a check - if you fail you cannot cast any other magic until you rest. Spells are very like D&D but not level limited. You are purely limited by the number you can cast. Rituals are powerful magicks. They take time and preparation, and usually need components and more to work. They always work, but will go bad in some way if you fail your check. They have levels and you cannot cast until you are at the right level. Book contains a scenario pack for semi-improvised play. Feels appropriate. Definitely built so you can start and run a game on the fly.

Overall impressions: Simple system (but the range of modifiers make it more fussy than advantage/disadvantage mechanic) which will be easy to teach or for anyone that has played D&D to pick up. Magic has a unique feel. Playbooks are great. Some good expansions available. Worth it. Hits the style that it aims for. Need to play this.

tl;dr low fantasy D&D retro-clone built for improvisational play with starting characters in a world of unknowns. I liked it enough that I bought the hardcover after I'd read the PDF.

"We live in a nuclear powered universe. We're the oddballs by getting energy from burning carbon."James Lovelock

Read “November Metric” for The Sprawl this week. It was one of the stretch goals from the Kickstarter. I was pleasantly impressed with it. There are lots of interesting ideas and images there that will act as inspiration even if I don’t use them directly. Useful for most cyberpunk games, I suspect.

//qThe only defense is to cease all communications. Shut all systems down, receive no messages. Further rep p p sqdr ....................//

"We live in a nuclear powered universe. We're the oddballs by getting energy from burning carbon."James Lovelock

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